Which job to pick healing

Hey! I'm a Dancer main wanting to enter the world of healing

Not going to lie, i've read a lot of posts here about the current mechanics of healers, and had several opinions from my FC too, so i want to hear all possible opinions before deciding what i should use

WHM: I've heard good things about whm meta wise, but it's also the most basic one, that gets boring quickly, no depth in abilities, just heal

SCH: "The worst healer" often called, has interesting mechanics and i like the shielding utility, but its often neglected too much and i fear i wont be as useful as any other healer using it

AST: The meta pick, but also the ruined one in words of people, that lost its soul with the patch and also the most complicated of the 3. Also the most used healer

To be fair i cant really be sure of who to pick, i dont think i want AST because everyone uses it and i want variety in my FC, but the other 2 dont seem too compelling. Should i just wait for the 4th healer or are the other 2 redeemable and fun enough to be played?

Give them a try, it's the best answer anyone is going to give you. What I find fun or boring may be completely different to you. The worst thing that'll happen to you is you'll waste a few roulettes on leveling a class if you don't enjoy it.

As for which one is fun speaking from personal experience, when I was doing normal content, and not caring about optimization, I didn't hate AST. Out of all 3 healers it's the only one that has something to do other than spam the 1 attack button and wait for a heal. I wouldn't say it's complicated, it's easy to understand, just busy. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to you. Where I find AST fails is when you try to learn to optimize or get better at it, and suddenly you're swapping targets every 2 seconds in the opener. It's a mess. Honest advice, don't raid on AST, I can handle high APM, but not when that high APM is just swapping targets constantly.

As for WHM and SCH, do you want to spam Glare or spam Broil? The main difference between the two is that SCH has more oGCDs. Other than that, their playstyle is very similar. Which is a shame, I loved SCH back in SB, then they went and stripped it all away in ShB.

All personal opinion, of course. Give them a try, who knows, maybe you'll see something I don't.

They're all good. Pick the one you like best and will be most interested in playing well.

You mention the meta, but the truth is if you're not going for world first clears and parse/speed runs of raids, meta doesn't matter. What's most important is that you enjoy whatever job you're playing at any given time, so that you're motivated to do your job well. So pick whichever healer has the best glams, or best animations, or best whatever draws you to them, and play that job well.

I'll try be as simple as possible.

If you want a straightforward gameplay, pick whm.

If you want a versatile gameplay with some planning, pick SCH.

If you want a busy mobile buffer with yet some planning, pick AST.

Difficulty curve being AST > SCH > WHM
Don't listen a single thing about meta. Currently, healers are what looks to be the "best balance" they ever had. Great healings tools and good rDPS.
No choice is real bad one, beside, before reaching the level where "meta" actually means something, the road is long and there's a lot to think about.

Otherwise, test them all and see what feeling looks to fit your playstyle or you won't know.

What content are you aiming for (dungeons? ex trials? savage? etc.) and how seriously do you pan on playing healer? Are you just dabbling or are you hoping to main it if you enjoy it? I feel like the answer to these questions matters a fair bit, especially if you plan on having a more casual approach to healing.

Try them. It is hard to recommend because so many different things click differently for people. Heck, even with all the healer complaints there are people who like the changes.

And I will second the point, don't worry about what is meta, all are plenty capable and meta is for top percentile who are looking for extra optimisation. I generally hold the principle you are better at a job you enjoy.

I'd say if you find shields and faeries interesting, try SCH first, if you like more of a burst of healing and something more fluid, try WHM first. If you want something that will keep you busy with a higher apm and something only slightly more technical, try AST first.

Don't be swayed by the complaints you read on the forums, all three healers are fun. Give them all a try, see which playstyle you prefer

I hate to join in on the "just try them all out and pick what you like" crowd, but it's really the best option. I have all three healers maxed and geared, so I play them all to some degree... But tbh I often find myself going back to SCH (I guess it's my main?) because I feel more comfortable with it's proactive playstyle.

I know people are unhappy with it right now, and maybe it is at a disadvantage currently... But that disadvantage isn't big enough that you can't complete high-end content, so it truly isn't a concern. If you like the job, and can play it decently? Then meta be damned.

It really comes down to which playstyle you like the most.

I guess on the "disgruntled healers" topic, speaking as one, I think being new to healing in this game that it is unlikely you'll have the same complaints, some newer healers have, but I tend to find the complaints weighted more to those who have healed a lot. So I wouldnt be put off by these comments, I am fine with people enjoying the jobs even if I don't anymore.

I'd say there's a fair reason for this, the core complaint is around the down time which is greater the more efficient you are at your job. The healing aspect of playing a healer IMO is good and it is good when you are pushed to make use of it. When you're learning the job, you will find that you might feel more pushed and think more about what you're doing and why.

It's once your healing aspect becomes more second nature that for a lot of content you don't feel pushed, which is fine because that content needs to be accessible. You may have cleared that content by the time you get to that point and be healing higher end stuff.

But you will find with experience it can leave a downtime, which some find uninspiring and not very interesting, because for the most part it feels like a single button spam. Some are fine with it. Some of that disappointment is elevated by the fact it wasn't always that way and we liked it how it was, as a new healer, it's unlikely you will have that perspective.

They're all viable, nobody's going to kick you for being a SCH instead of a WHM. Or at least nobody worth listening to will do so.

What I would do is get one of those rotational cork-boards, or build one in a circular fashion. Pie it into three sections for each healer, spin it, and then throw a dart at it. Bam! There's your healer.

If you miss the board entirely, well....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Awep

AST: The meta pick, but also the ruined one in words of people, that lost its soul with the patch and also the most complicated of the 3. Also the most used healer

To be fair i cant really be sure of who to pick, i dont think i want AST because everyone uses it and i want variety in my FC, but the other 2 dont seem too compelling. Should i just wait for the 4th healer or are the other 2 redeemable and fun enough to be played?

---

AST might be a meta pick, but it if by far not the most used healer if anything. I'd say I see more WHMs and SCH than ASTs mainly because people dislike the card system that much.

I wouldn't say SCH is the worst healer because it does well in healing with its shielding kit. In terms of the three healers, it's not exactly the best pick for dungeon runs because it is a shield healer - and thus focuses more on increasing survival rate on big attacks with extra HP as a buffer. It excels in bossing instead. SCH's dps kit did get gutted pretty bad though, but the same can be said for all healers this expansion.

Honestly, play whoever you want. From what I hear, you already decided on picking SCH. Just give it a go before deciding if you don't want to continue tbh. If you dislike it, try another healer or just wait for a 4th.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

AST might be a meta pick, but it if by far not the most used healer if anything. I'd say I see more WHMs and SCH than ASTs mainly because people dislike the card system that much.

I wouldn't say SCH is the worst healer because it does well in healing with its shielding kit. In terms of the three healers, it's not exactly the best pick for dungeon runs because it is a shield healer - and thus focuses more on increasing survival rate on big attacks with extra HP as a buffer. It excels in bossing instead. SCH's dps kit did get gutted pretty bad though, but the same can be said for all healers this expansion.

Honestly, play whoever you want. From what I hear, you already decided on picking SCH. Just give it a go before deciding if you don't want to continue tbh. If you dislike it, try another healer or just wait for a 4th.

---

What dps kit? We have ONE spell we spam 80% of the time now. Yoshi murdered the Scholar just the same he murdered Seline. RIP my sweet fairy, Square Enix always hated you.

I started the expansion as WHM but leveled all 3. I was SCH main before this but didn't like the changes and hadn't really enjoyed AST before.

I cleared savage 1-4 in reasonable time and started progress on TEA but the raid team stopped after a few weeks mostly due to some irl commitments for some players so I have played pretty casually since then.

Now I have changed to main AST after playing it as it is more interesting than WHM. I still don't like how they changed SCH so that's still a no go for me. Its not that its bad it just that it does not feel as fluid for me anymore (likely not given it enough play time I suppose but changes shouldn't be that drastic that I feel this way, its only personal though! It might feel fine to others!).

I would encourage you to try them all honestly. Potd can give you the 1-60 experience of them though all 3 get some really important and awesome parts of their toolkit after this.

To get the basics down, go with CNJ/WHM first, then once you've gotten your niche I'd suggest trying out AST next. SCH really be wildin' tho ngl

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Truen

What dps kit? We have ONE spell we spam 80% of the time now. Yoshi murdered the Scholar just the same he murdered Seline. RIP my sweet fairy, Square Enix always hated you.

---

That's the joke. :'( Hopefully next expansion changes this.

I would go scholar over the other 2 any day. White mage is boring and astro is extremely hard to master. Scholar has powerfull shield, and it has a good variety of skills.

-WHM is good for beginners. It's mechanically simple and desirable for their MP efficiency.
-SCH is a good all-arounder, it has lots of OGCD heals and nice utility. Has good MP economy with the return of energy drain. It is of intermediate difficulty, generally a nice go-to when you get bored of the simplicity of WHM.
-AST is technically the best healer right now iirc (numerically speaking), but it's also the busiest, and most complex. Has a lot of micromanagement of buffs. It has the worst MP economy of the healers, so you need to make sure to meld extra piety

All of the healers are great picks for light content consumption, but have like several issues when ascending their skill ceilings. WHm can just get seriously boring. AST has extremely minimal rewards and value per action, controller issues result in an extremely high APM and can result in carpal tunnel, and MP issues that will persist into the higher levels. SCH, totally not something that I will like play often, but it's literally just like WHM with barriers in lieu regens, which makes it like super boring as well if you can like make the pet bar functional.

But, in like casual play, the main differences are:

WHM: A pure healer design with really high dmg output and crowd control and zero MP issues, and it's a regen type hlr. Super friendly for beginners

Sch: A hlr that's focused on oops prevention using shield spells with a token/stack resource for extra healing and dmg reduction utilities. It's also a pet class that uses it as a sub-hlr

AST: A flexible high-speed caster with a lot of flexibility and MP issues. It's secondary function is currently to buff everyone's dmg individually by a small amount or by a 6-12% buff at later levels for the entire party. It's really active to an extreme, so it's not the best to like start out with